Oxford Borough moves closer to purchasing parking lot

03/22/2016 02:34PM
● By Steven Hoffman

Following a brief executive session at
the March 21 meeting, Oxford Borough Council unanimously approved an
agreement of sale to purchase two parcels that comprise the National
Penn Bank parking lot in the borough's business district.

The borough is now waiting for the
agreement of sale to be approved by National Penn Bank.

The parking lot is the preferred site
for a parking garage that borough officials are considering as a way
to boost economic development in the downtown and to solve the
long-term parking issues.

Oxford will pay $1 to acquire the
rights to the two parcels. The agreement also stipulates that the
National Penn Bank will receive 40 parking spaces in the 300-space
parking garage for a period of 25 years.

Securing an agreement of sale on the
parking lot was a necessary step in the process of planning for the
construction of the parking garage.

“I am glad that I am a part of the
council that did this—I think it's very exciting,” said council
president Ron Hershey after the announcement.

Council member Randy Grace echoed the
sentiment, saying that he is looking forward to seeing Oxford's
business district grow.

The borough has actually been exploring
the possibility of purchasing the National Penn Bank-owned parking
lot for many years because portions of the lot have long been used
for public parking. That arrangement dates back to when the lot was
owned by the Peoples Bank of Oxford.

In related business, Steven Krug, the
principal of Krug Architects, the firm retained by the borough to
oversee the parking garage project, offered an update about the
efforts to construct a parking structure in the business district.
They are currently working on two active grant applications to secure
funding for the parking garage project. A meeting also took place
recently with State Rep. John Lawrence and the Economic Development
Committee of Oxford Mainstreet, Inc. (OMI).

OMI executive director Donna Hosler
made a request for Oxford to increase its annual contribution in
support of the organization. She noted that the borough has been
contributing around $10,500 for many years. The OMI board is looking
for the borough to increase its contribution to $15,500 annually.

She noted that one of the reasons that
the borough has supported OMI financially is that the organization
takes responsibility for maintaining the plants and flowers in the
downtown, cleans up debris in the business district, and handles
other necessary chores that are essential to the town.

“These are things that the borough
would probably need to do if there were no OMI,” Hosler said,
explaining that these functions are only a small part of OMI's
overall mission to promote economic development in the downtown.

Hershey agreed that OMI does work that
would otherwise fall to the borough's employees, and he said that the
borough gets a very good return on its investment.

Grace suggested sending this issue to
the Finance Committee for consideration.